NAFTA renegotiation drags on, and so CREDO helps you tell our Trade Representative to negotiate NAFTA openly and transparently, to negotiate without using the nefarious Trans-Pacific "Partnership" as a starting point, and to get rid of NAFTA's "investor-state tribunals," among other things. Going over the rest of CREDO's list: I don't particularly want to use "free" trade deals to force other nations to adhere to our environmental and labor standards -- if I don't want them nullifying our laws, I certainly don't think it's fair to nullify theirs, and besides, a lot of countries have those standards already, but hardly enforce them, for a variety of reasons. But requiring imports to meet our product safety standards is not only fair but necessary, and I don't want "free" trade deals to run roughshod over Buy American and Buy Local policies, either. And I certainly don't want "free" trade deals to shovel more money toward big pharma monopolies; seriously, how much is enough for these clowns? As always, though, the "investor-state tribunal," or "investor-state dispute settlement mechanism," is my main target -- we go through a lot of trouble in America to get the laws we want, and why should we let a trade deal give corporations the right to nullify those laws and exact tribute from the taxpayer for their trouble?
Meanwhile, as you're no doubt aware, President Trump has announced his intention to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (or DACA) in six months' time, which would presumably give Congress six months to come up with a replacement (that Mr. Trump may or may not sign; people seem to forget that part!). If Congress doesn't come up with a replacement that could withstand a Trump veto, Mr. Trump says he'll "revisit" the issue, which sure doesn't have his trademark look-at-these-balls-swing swagger, does it? The DACA program, as you know, allows folks brought here by their undocumented immigrant parents as children to stay here, free of fear of deportation and free to work and contribute to society, as long as they reapply to the program every two years. We could argue that they're important to our economy, but we don't have to: even if you're of the mind, as I am, that we shouldn't enable big corporations replace us all with cheaper foreign workers, you would still, I'd think, regard deporting children to countries to which they have no emotional attachment -- indeed, countries of which they likely have no memory -- as a cruel act. Messrs. Trump and Sessions apparently don't see it as cruelty, but you'd have good reason to doubt their moral compasses point anywhere but to themselves. So CREDO, MoveOn, Color of Change, and Moms Rising all help you advocate for these immigrants, all brought here without their consent, who now call America home.
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